April 20-21 /07
MULTIMEDIALE/ Provisions Library and Gallery

The first project of the group was entitled "Protesting on Demand". The main idea was to institutionalize the act of protesting, which normally is something that is very fluid and improvised (in itschoreographic sense). In this collective performance the act of protesting became serialized, and "aesthetisized" through a series of actions. But the protest is also an accessible and participatory act, contextual to the city of Washington. The protests were staged in 4 locations in the DC area - each group was distinguished by different colors using the subway lines color system. Each group involved 4 artists, and each artist accomplished a specific task, from engaging the public to documenting the protest. The idea was that each group would create placards and slogans with the protest initiator or promoter. The protest initiator could be someone on the street or it could be feedback obtained from the webpage associated with the project (which is accessible during the performance). The initiator or promoter received feedback through the Internet. (redundant?) Each protest was held for 3 minutes and it could be about any subject. The contents of the protests were provided by people walking by on the street or by people communicating through the Internet – by anyone who wanted to voice concern. A web page www.floatinglabcollective.org was created to collect national and international concerns and stand points that people wanted voiced in one of the most important "loci" of the world; Washington DC. The main idea was to create a platform to voice discourse and people's concerns from a variety of sources inside the social fabric.

The 4 groups on the street were linked to the gallery (the floating office) through messengers, who collected the documentation hourly, in the form of video, digital photo, sound recording and the log of the project. This "floating office" was composed of 4 artists provided with a printer, and computers from which they continually updated the web page. The documentation was posted regularly and displayed in the gallery through video projectors and prints. The work was constantly shifting and evolving during the execution of the performance, to amplify the idea of urgency, immediacy and overall importance. Protesting is an act of resistance to power figures, an expression of our own identity against these authorities. And these are some of the parameters of the art process. Protesting means to "publicly demonstrate strong objection to a policy or course of action adopted by those in authority". The protester performs in public spaces in order to convey an idea, voice a message, or deliver a discourse. The collective amplifies this expression in order to create a platform for that voice to be presented and heard.

Protest can also be seen as an act of simulacra, in the sense of it being a performance that releases us from the "status quo"--from reality as presented, and allows us to construct a fundamental ideal of subversion and self- determination. In this sense, protesting has the structure of the carnival as Bakhtin conceptualizes it. The collective is organized, and for the duration of the performance, hierarchy is erased. Power figures and the powerless intermingle as equals in this setting. Masks allow the hierarchical structure to be dismantled in the context of carnival. The use of masks is mirrored during the protest by one of the performer in each group. These masks, fabricated by Maureen Tucker, stereotype busts of political figures and synthesize political dominance.